Tag: viewpoint

It’s your choice—the self-defining allure of customised drinks

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I ducked into a café the other day to get a takeaway. A rare occurrence. I’m usually happy with the sludge I distil from my plunger, which I drink black and limited to two cups in the morning.

For the life of me, I can’t see the attraction in paying some barista to put a silver fern or similar chocolate or cinnamon ‘artwork’ on top of coffee-flavoured frothy milk. It seems a modern sort of financial self-harm, especially if it’s repeated several times daily. Now we also run the gauntlet of choice overload through the plethora of options on offer, including the ability to customise our drinks.

It’s not all chocolate drizzles and boba-bubbled tea

OK, so what genius pioneered the concept of people’s choice beverges? Many cafes and bars offer options to personalise your brew from a seemingly infinite variety of ingredients and combos. Sounds like a great idea on the surface. But it’s not all chocolate drizzles and boba-bubbled tea. As well as the fun factor, there are some distinct drawbacks, not least the time involved which is making the whole concept of convenience frankly, inconvenient.

But perhaps you’re more accepting than me and just scroll patiently through your phone messages while the personalisers ahead in the queue prevaricate. By the time the wretched barista or cocktail maker has crafted their dream concoctions, I’m in danger of losing the will to live. Or, at least, cracking a back molar as I grind my teeth in frustration listening to the dithering. “Sorry, I’ve changed my mind; I don’t want toffee salt lime slush. Can you please make it a cuckoo spit slime?” “Wait, thinking about it, let’s add some hellwort hot sauce…” Oh please people, just get on with it.

Fancy customised drinks are a crowd puller

Whether customised, personalised or just plain elaborate, fancy drinks have become the ‘must have’ offer for any hospitality worth its Tibetan sea salt. Even MacDonald’s is at it. Their new drive-through beverage spin-off CosMcs launched in Chicago in 2023, offers “out-of-this-world beverages and treats” that “lift humans up with every sip.” I’m sure humanity will be duly elevated and grateful for the boost. The menu includes CosMcs Sea Salted Caramelactic, “a shaken (not stirred) Espresso”. So, it’s not only James Bond who prefers his drinks that way. However, the very clubbable 007’s signature Martini is unimaginably dull by today’s standards, with only two ingredients: vodka (or gin) and vermouth. Wait, make that a daring three with the addition of an olive as garnish.  

Coming back to CosMcs (because it amuses me), you could have a Coconaut Cold Brew, an Oat and Honey Moon Latte, or a French Toast Galaxyy Latte. Chai Frappé Burst, anyone? A Popping Pear Slush? These drinks are all “signature brews” and kudos to the creatives for the names. There’s no personalisation but lots of pose and perplexity. Oh, and the good news? Your first “space drink” is on them. I counted 45 options you could choose from to wash down your Creamy Avocado Tomatillo Sandwich and a side order of Cookie Butter McPops. I know, I need to get a life.

Customising your drink—the new form of self-expression

OK, so I’m ignoring the appeal to many people, which is all about the fun involved in experimenting with different tastes. The ability to conjure your ultimate bedazzling magic potion of syrups, powders, fruit chunks, boba, sprinkles, foams, etc. And where’s the harm? Like bling, it’s just another way of making a personal statement. A simple black coffee says nothing in this world. Well, perhaps ordering a black coffee could be taken as a mild rebellion against the herd mentality. A bit of inverted snobbery even.

According to Starbucks barista and TikTok trendsetter Josiah Varghese,  a drink “is a status thing—people can carry it around and show people: This is me”. It sounds like an improbable way of showing your individuality, but he has 1.8 million followers on TikTok, so what would I know? 

I’ve always believed in self-expression. The customised drinks variety, although it doesn’t call to me, is just another way of achieving it. Pretty much every choice we make is to some extent driven by the image we want to portray. Where we live, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, cosmetics, perfumes, food preferences, whether we straighten our curly etc. So why not our coffee and other drinks choices?

It was so simple in the ‘before times’

I’m a Gin & Tonic girl, not only because I like the taste (or acquired a liking for it after a fair amount of experimentation) but also because it enhanced the self-image I aspired to in my youth. This choice has proved to have a shelf life as I’m still a G&T girl when I drink spirits, which is as now rare as sightings of those poor pangolins around the world.

10 Things You didn't Know About Pangolins — www.wild.aid.com

Pangolins are cool

Just digressing for a moment, I’ve done something few other people have and it’s not swimming with the All Blacks which is my other claim to fame. I saw a pangolin in Africa years ago to the astonishment of our small party and our guide. Apparently this sighting was the safari equivalent a one-in-a-million-year event. Pangolins are one of the most endangered species in the world through poaching and habitat destruction, but it’s hard to track how many are there because they’re so shy and rarely seen.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stranger

Anyway, G&T seemed like a sophisticated choice, a perception that was strongly influenced by a very sophisticated grandmother. G&T was her preferred ‘poison’ and something she thought appropriate for ‘young ladies’. She made an elegant ritual by pouring generous pre-dinner drinks from gleaming crystal decanters which seemed so gorgeously grown up and admirable. Imitation is, they say, the sincerest form of flattery. Whether she was flattered by my adoption of her drink is anyone’s guess, but she certainly did her share of role modelling in many areas of my life.

Now, even ordering a gin has become an ordeal of choice overload due to the burgeoning barrage of increasingly bizarre gin labels. For example, Pisces Chilli and Pineapple Zodiac Series Gin, Hot Cross Gin (handy at Easter) and Malfy Con Arancia Gin. How about Dancing Sands Wasabi Gin? Hmmmm …. must try that. But, as the Joker quips in 2008’s Batman movie, The Dark Knight, “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stranger”. I’m certainly not averse to a bit of spicy strangeness.

So, is the hype worth it?

One bonus could be that many of these complex concoctions—are they still drinks?—are close to meals in their own right. No need to fork out on actual food. I guess that’s why CosMcs drinks to food ratio using a beer mat calculation is around 10:4. 

Having been given all this liquid diversity, the pendulum, as it inevitably does, is swinging back. Chains like Starbucks are beginning to recognise that endless choice serves no one. They have radically pruned their “overly complex” menu. The aim is to reduce bottlenecks and win back cash-strapped customers as the cost-of-living crisis bites the hand that feeds people. Starbucks’ global sales fell by 7% between July and September 2024. I’m picking they won’t be alone as fickle customers long for the ‘before times’ when the choice was simple: Lucozde, Robinson’s Barley Water, Rose’s lime juice. Remember them? Maybe even a Coca-Cola if you were an adventurer looking for kicks.

Anyway, talking about G&T has made me want one and it’s beyond the appointed hour. However, in the spirit, as it were, of our times, instead of tonic, I’ve got a sudden urge to add some Berry Hibiscus Tobasco Sourade to the one I’m about to pour. Cheers. 

The love times they are a changin’ — fancy a polycule anyone?

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It seems that relationships are getting more complicated by the minute. Or maybe we’re just in an age of micro-definitions. Take the polycule. A concept I was happily unfamiliar with until I read about it last weekend. In case, like me, you didn’t know, polycules are a version of polyamory. Polyamory being of course, the juggling act of engaging in multiple romantic, typically sexual, relationships, with the consent of all the people involved.

New names, old behaviours

I’m pretty sure that the only thing that’s changed is that we’ve now got names for stuff that people have been at since Adam and Eve got chucked out of Eden. People experiment with all sorts of sexual combos. They always have. You only have to think ‘Mormon’ and ‘sister wives’. The practice of taking multiple wives or lovers goes back to the earliest of times—some anthropologists believe that up to 80 percent of early humans were polygamous. But it seems to be a thing now in a way it hasn’t been before, perhaps because of the predominance of social media in shaping or naming trends. As a consequence, there’s an emerging sexual zeitgeist with a growing vocabulary to define an increasing number of relationship variants meaning we can now choose our “lovestyle”, not just our lifestyle.

So we all know about throuples right? Three-way relationships where all three participate. Throuples—also known as triads—have been in vogue for some time as celebs open up about their non-conventional preferences. For example, in 2011, Charlie Sheen openly talked about living with two 24-year-old girlfriends, he called his “goddesses”. Throuples don’t necessarily live together, but they are in an acknowledged and sexual relationship. Imagine if Menelaus, Helen and Paris had the open-mindedness to form a throuple, instead of Paris stealing Helen away from Menelaus and the ten years of mayhem and destruction that followed. Troy might still be standing, as I’ve said before.

So, what is a polycule?

What is a polycule?
https://www.allure.com/story/what-is-a-polycule

In a polycule, three or more people might be involved but don’t all necessarily have sex. Let’s put that in context. Priam is in a sexual relationship with Hecuba and Athena. Hecuba and Athena don’t shag each other. So this group is not a throuple. But they are a polecule because, like the atoms in a molecule, they are connected to each other through Priam, who functions as a “hinge”. The person in the middle. Hecuba and Athena are “metamours”. People whose lover has another lover but with whom they have no romantic relationship. .e., the partner’s other girlfriend or boyfriend or their lover’s spouse. So if you’re partner has another lover, they are your metamour, and you are theirs.

With me so far? I repeat, it’s complicated. The word polycule itself is a construct combining polyamorous and molecule. I’m sure all you chemistry lovers are familiar with the concept of molecules as groups of atoms that are bonded together. In polycules, it’s groups of people that get bonded.

But wait, there’s more…a one-sized polycule doesn’t fit all

Polecules vary in size and shape— some can be extensive. There’s the parallel poly when members of the group know their lover has another lover but don’t form any relationship with them. There’s also garden table poly, which means the various partners all socialise convivially together. The difference between your bog standard polyamory, as far as I can make out, is that polycules are largely a constellation of intimate connections that are not all about sex.  

So if I were in a polycule (I’m not BTW), it could go something like this. I’m dating Hector and Paris. Paris also dates Helen and Cassandra. Hector dates Andromache and Hecuba. I’m not necessarily dating Helen, Cassandra, Andromache or Hecuba. Let’s face it: what woman wouldn’t feel her cup runneth over if it contained only Hector and Paris? But the others are nonetheless integral parts of my polycule, being my lover’s lovers and all. We’re all intimately connected. In the garden poly variety, we’d likely all pitch up at Trojan royal family feasts to listen to Cassandra’s latest doom-scrolling prophesies.

There are many more varieties—thanks to Cosmopolitan for this further insight. There’s V Polyamory (one person dating two who aren’t involved with each other), Quads, Comet Partners, and Platonic Polycules, as well as the different integration levels of metamours. Polycules can be open or closed (i.e. exclusive or permissive) and may be hierarchical with one person as the primary link between the others or ones where everyone is on equal footing. There’s also Parallel Polyamory—polycule members have other partners, but they don’t interact or have contact. It’s a parallel structure. This spawns teleamours— our partners’ partners’ partners. There are no rules as long as everyone’s consenting.  Some polyculers go all in and share houses and bank accounts.

Is the secret to the polycule “authentic love”?

Feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1985), most known for her feminist novel, The Second Sex, was famously married to the even more famous Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). The couple never married, but their lifelong open relationship, which saw each of them pursuing other sexual and romantic partners, lasted more than 50 years. They talked about their approach as “Authentic Love”. Originally Sartre’s idea, de Beauvoir was apparently game to “embrace all experience.” They claimed this approach succeeded because the sole condition was total transparency. Despite the relationship’s longevity, peers questioned how happy they were. It seemed to suit Sartre better as de Beauvoir was reputedly prone to jealousy and had far fewer affairs.

Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir 1954
Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir 1954

Which brings up a good point. How do you navigate any polycule variant without someone getting their nose (or other anatomical item) out of joint? Is everyone involved so secure that they don’t doubt their centricity to the melange? It feels as if the starting point is deciding what you want from any relationship. It must be just as crucial that three (or more) people have convergent expectations as two. And what happens if two of a triad are more into each other and even marginally neglect the third? Is there ever the possibility of love equity, or even such a thing?

It’s not all a bed of authentically scented polyamorous roses

Polyamory isn’t legally recognised in Britain or America, so you don’t get the sort of benefits monogamy brings, such as tax breaks, pension plans, sharing mortgages, child custody, and a clear inheritance plan. Come to think about it, we singletons don’t benefit from those either, but it’s not yet illegal to be single or childless (or a single, childless cat lover).

Polyamorous relationships seem to me to come with as many, if not more, hooks than monogamous ones. There are so many decisions to make, not least how you schedule your playtime. Equally, do you meet your partner’s other ‘squeezes’ or leave well alone? Does it help or start to erode the foundations of your relationship with them?

On the other hand, polycules could be the perfect antidote to giving too much or falling too deeply for one person and the anguish that can follow if it goes wrong. Perhaps sharing the love means fewer eggshells to walk on. If one person in the polycule doesn’t feel like it tonight, there’s a fighting chance someone else will, so could it be the answer to duty sex? In this world, Paris wants to watch the footie. Menelaus wants to watch the chariot races on the beach. Helen wants to bring back a bit of that loving feeling. Paris is happy to oblige. Menelaus is happy they’re both happy, and he gets to do what he wants.  Perhaps it’s easier with your polycule posse taking up the slack when you’re not in the mood, or can’t be fagged to go out to see a play, have another baby … whatever.

The lovestyle choice for a growing number

I’ve always believed that pretty much anything goes between consenting adults. So, if a polycule or any variation on the them is what does it for you and your polyamours, good for you. In any case, you’re not alone.  Polycules are growing in popularity. A recent YouGov poll found that about two per cent of adult Brits are in polyamorous relationships, and seven per cent say they would be open to it. Those numbers aren’t going to turn society on its head. However, it does mean that an increasing number of people are asking the questions differently and challenging norms that no longer work for them. 

If you’re into a whole lotta love and not finding conventional couplings are doing it for you, perhaps a polycule might yield better returns for your labours of love. Less chance of love’s labours lost? As for me. Well, I’m too lazy. Or too old. Or both. If sticking with one person for the long haul has proven challenging, how on earth would I wrangle several? Eek. In any case, call me old-fashioned, but for me, “Be my teleamour” doesn’t cut it like “Be my Valentine.”

PS Despite the title, I’m not really asking if anyone’s up for a polycule…in case you wondered.

Woman Victorian Hat

Brattish or demure—which tribe do you belong to?

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A couple of days ago, I read about the trending makeover of the word demure on TikTok in an article How Demure Are You?[1]. TikTok is awash with advice about how to be demure. Before you get your feminist dander up, no one is urging a dash towards traditional womanly demureness. The repurposed demure is not about being reserved, modest or shy. It’s been hijacked to serve more modern mores.

The instigator of the new demure is TikTok creator Jools Lebron, who sets standards for seminal stuff like managing makeup and moustache sweat. The concept has been seized on and spread like wildfire. Lebron uses demure semi-ironically to encompass the ideas of respect and mindfulness. Well, who can argue with that? Not me—those are two qualities I wish were in greater supply, as a matter of course. So, sitting gracefully. Demure. Showing restraint in your coffee order. Light milk, not the full version. Yup, also demure. Demure dainty spritzes of perfume instead of the usual scent surplus that challenges the olfactory senses and triggers anyone with allergies. Demur clothes to show respect to others at work. Wow, maybe all those female lawyers flashing their cleavages in fantasy TV courtroom dramas could take a leaf out of this book?

I thought the word demure had long since been tossed on the bonfire of, if not the vanities, the behaviours no one (broad generalisation) seems to care much about. Instead, it’s heading towards the stratosphere in the influencerverse. It’s hilarious when you think it’s pretty much the antithesis of the “brat” thing inspired by Charli XCX’s recent album. Like demure, which is no longer about keeping your eyes modestly lowered, a brat is no longer a brat— a petulant, badly behaved child or someone acting like one. No, the new Charli XCX brat is a different beast altogether. This brat is super cool. Petulance has transformed into the more admirable audacity of non-conformity. Bad behaviour is now spirited youthful defiance and ‘out there’ or creative self-expression.

Whatever happened to the seductiveness of slow?

OK, so you probably realise I’m not a TikTokker. Reading is my primary source of what’s hot and what’s not, with an underpinning of docutainment from the streaming services. Even though I don’t spend time on TikTok, the impact of it is everywhere. As a reader of opinion, you can’t be entirely oblivious to some of its influencers’ influences as they whoosh past. It’s fascinating. It’s like the world exists in fast-forward—words and images flash in front of our consciousnesses in perpetual motion as each new thing grabs headspace and headlines. But you’d have to say all the brouhaha is entertaining. A bit of fun in our not-so-fun times. But, like Shakespeare’s Darling Buds of May[2], TikTok’s lease has all too short a date. Summer ends, and so do TikTok trends.

I’m taking a bit of licence here by bringing in Shakespeare in the context of TikTok, but his Sonnet 18—Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day?—is one of the most enduring and loved of all poems. The language is gorgeous, but the meaning is divine (see the poem below). Shakespeare’s theme is the opposite of our fast-forward and instantly forgettable ‘content-driven’ times. It is an exquisite word picture capturing the enduring power of love and poetry to immortalise and preserve. The Sonnet so elegantly puts across the author’s belief that the essence of a person, an idea, or a love can outlast death. These can be captured in words that long outlive the writer or the subject. The wonderfully comforting thought is that as long as we can see (read) and breathe, the subject will live on with each new reading.[3].

When I was the age of the current Brat Pack, I’d have been rampaging in brattish trappings with the best of them. An invitation to be demure, even in it’s made over sense? Not so much.

The whole “Brat Summer”[4] break out fun. Ditto, the reinvention of demure. I’m not saying they don’t matter—when I was the age of the current Brat Pack, I’d have been rampaging in brattish trappings with the best of them. An invitation to be demure, even in it’s made over sense? Not so much.

Whether your tribe is brat or demure, it’s okay to flirt with a new thing. But it all seems so fleeting and ephemeral, encouraging attention spans that might struggle to compete with the average goldfish. It were ever thus when it comes to shiny new things, but the speed at which the carousel is spinning is mind-boggling—an average TikTok post lasts less time than ice cream in the sun. Or, maybe I’m just demurring the reality of digital overwhelm when I say I prefer to keep company with concepts that eternal summer cannot fade.

Sonnet 18 — William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Charli XCX Brat

Jools Lebrun on TikTok

@joolieannie

#fyp

♬ original sound – Jools Lebron

[1] Madison Malone Kircher, Callie Holtermann, Gina Cherelus, Melissa Guerrero and Anthony Rotunno in the New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/14/style/demure-tiktok-mindful-cutesy.html?searchResultPosition=1

[2] The timeless Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare. Originally published with Shakespeare’s other sonnets in 1609.

[3] I enjoyed this commentary of the Sonnet by ThoughtCo.

[4] The other big trend du jour, inspired by Charli XCX’s recent album Brat.

To smooth or not to smooth? The eternal dichotomy of curly hair.

Published on by francesmanwaring.com2 Comments

If you came into the world sporting insanely curly hair like me, you’ve probably had a love/hate relationship with it throughout your life.

It’s estimated that about 60% of us have curly hair. That’s a fair chunk of people who regularly decide they don’t want the hair type they were allocated because it’s not the ‘in’ thing. Of course, we shouldn’t fall victim to this eternal runway of fashion ins and outs but … advertising is a powerful shapeshifter. We want to be beautiful, have the right look, not be ‘othered’.  

To be clear, I haven’t spent my entire life obsessing about whether to straighten my crowning glory or let it do its corkscrewed worst, but here’s the thing. At times when the world has worshiped at the shrine of flowing straight locks, for us frizz heads, smooth, sleek hair seems as precious as Tutankhamun’s Golden Mask, and just as out of reach. We live our lives on that most uncomfortable of places, the horns of the to smooth or not to smooth dilemma.

People, talk about beauty shaming. What about hair shaming? Shouldn’t that be a thing too? Straight or curly, there’s always a time when what you have doesn’t cut it according to the fashionistas and you don’t feel in the slightest pretty — a topic I’ve covered in a previous post.

When I finally acknowledged a couple of years ago that I might as well have been trying to nail jelly to the wall as keep my tousled tresses under control for significant chunks of my life, I put a stop to a lifetime of denial. I stepped away from the Curly Wars and towards my best hair life, casting aside all the primping paraphernalia like so much unwanted baggage.

I was a curly-haired cherub as a child. People would positively croon over my gorgeous golden spirals … and I basked in their admiration, right? Wrong, I hated it. As I entered my teens, I realised my look just didn’t make the cut … as it were. I wanted to be a long-haired badass, not a curly-haired little butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth poppet. When my mother’s hair writ split at the ends in my early teens, I went on a long march to curly freedom.

But oh, the pain of the journey. Getting short curly hair to the bit where it’s a cascading glory not a god-awful grotesquerie builds lifelong attributes like inner fortutide, grit and determination. My recalcitrant curls couldn’t seem to stir themselves to grow any length, and for a couple of self-loathing years, I became that person. The nerdy, bookworm, violin-playing possessor of a horror story triangular frizz.

At that time, it wasn’t the curls per se that were the problem—Marc Bolan had already seduced us with his lyrical depth, “I ain’t no square with my corkscrew hair” in Telegram Sam. And I wanted to be that person. Pity the diminutive Glam Rock pioneer prematurely got curled around a tree in a pocket rocket Mini in 1977 just a couple of weeks short of his 30th birthday. The curly world mourned more than the loss of a rock legend. Think what he could have done to change the curly conversation over the years. Or maybe even the Mighty Mouse of the singing world would have succumbed to prevailing hair trends along with the rest of us Lemmings.

It doesn’t matter a damn that other people rave about your curls – curls are a personal thing.

It also doesn’t matter a damn that other people rave about your curls. Many people have put mine up on a pedestal. Everyone except me seems to love them. But curls are a personal thing. Mine weren’t the sleek Siren look I lusted after because “it is known” (a la Daenerys’s handmaids in Game of Thrones) or at least it certainly seemed to me that straight hair was perceived as more appealing and sexier than curls. As a consequence, I spent hours daily duelling the unruly little suckers with a blow dryer. I’d section my hair and brush each one over and over until it had a semblance of straightness. It was all awful for the hair, but we didn’t have the flat irons and specialised product we do now.

Ironically, I grew up in a cold climate where gale-force winds, driving rain or blizzard conditions were the prevailing weather conditions, so all the hours of smoothing went out the window the minute I stepped out the door. Remember the episode of Friends when Monica landed in Hawaian humidity with glorious sleek hair that frizzed out the minute she stepped off the plane? Been there, done that, worn the tee-shirt.

So, I started straightening in the mid-seventies, the time as some wag said, when hippies roamed the earth and footballers sported perms and ‘tashes. But it wasn’t until the mad eighties that we reached peak curl. The eighties were a riot of too much everything. I moved to London in 1981 and revelled in the excess. It was a time when fashion was said to have thrown discretion to the winds and gone plain wild. It was all about extreme individuality—the tail end of the Punk Era and the rise of the New Romantics. Big, curly hair wasn’t just a style but an attitude. In that decade, if you had straight hair, you were screwed. Hair was ‘pouffed’ to within an inch of its product-laden life. Body was the bomb. Curls reigned supreme. I was at last free to stop trying to coax my curls into conformity and revel in my great good fortune in not needing a perm to achieve the look.

By the eighties, we reached peak curl. Big, curly hair wasn’t just a style, it was an attitude. If you had straight hair, you were screwed!

Then, from the mid-nineties, it all went pear-shaped again as the pendulum of fashion swung, as is the way with pendulums. And, to my shame, I swung with it … and then swung back … and swung again.  

OK, so I exaggerate in the interests of a good story. I’m not—quite—the fashion victim I’m making myself out to be. What’s fuelled my personal curl-path more than wanting to be in with the In Crowd has been my prevailing mood. Curly is confident me—the kickass, outgoing facet of my many-faceted self. Straight has often accompanied the stressful, conflicted me, coping with times of uncertainty and change. I guess it was a way of imposing some order and feeling a bit glam.

Women are notable for slashing long hair when relationships break down. In my case, I tend to go to ground and dial everything, including my hair, down while I re-energise and recover from whatever’s bothering me. For sure, fashion trends have some impact—I don’t live in a vacuum—but it’s largely about how I’m feeling.

I’m in with the in-crowd

Anyway, in this tale with a lot of twists, I’m glad to have once-and-for all accepted that my curls are one of my superpowers. I am once more a rebel without a comb. Like the Hidden Tiger, I’m coiled and ready to spring. My hair has always been more mood than mane. I finally see that curly hair like mine isn’t just a plate of food. It’s a signature dish.

And how clever of me to come to this life-changing conclusion at a time when curly hair has become infinitely Instagrammable. Tellingly Tik Tokable. The frisson of frizz fascinates rather than frightens. Posting endless pix of your capricious curls is all the rage. It’s not just in our modern times that curls have come and gone. It’s been the same story since Eve was blamed for everything and chucked out of Eden.

Humans are contrary by nature—we’re rarely happy with what we’ve got. The curly want straight, and the straight want curly. It was ever thus. My advice? Keep calm and curl on.

Here’s my Top Twenty picks from Instagram’s curly cuties whose “spirals have gone viral”.

Courtesy of Wolf Global
  • Embracing the chaos, one curl at a time
  • Sassy, classy and a bit smart-assy
  • Born to be wild and curly
  • Twist, shout, and let those curls out
  • Curly hair, don’t care, got flare everywhere
  • Curls rule the world
  • In a sea of straight, my curls are the wave
  • Living the curly life one spiral at a time
  • Embrace the chaos of your curls
  • Let your curls do the talking
  • Sassy, classy, and a bit smart-assy… courtesy of my curls
  • Walk through life like it’s a curly runway
  • When life gives you curls, flaunt them
  • Own your curls, own your crown
  • Fearless in the pursuit of what sets my curls on fire
  • My hair isn’t messy; it’s just erupting with awesome
  • Curls are the exclamation point of my personality!
  • Perfectly curled and unapologetically bold
  • Curls on point; life on track
  • It’s not just curls; it’s an attitude with spirals.
There's nothing like a good cry.

Not a dry eye in the house? There’s nothing like a good cry.

Published on by francesmanwaring.com4 Comments

OK, so full disclosure: I’m a crier. I snivel at the drop of a happy or a sad ending. I tear up at feats of astonishing human achievement, bravery, loyalty, courage, against-the-odds survival, redemption, etc. Thinking about it, I tear up at astonishing feats of animal bravery, loyalty, courage, and against-the-odds survival. Not sure if redemption is a thing for animals, although there are some fantastic stories of animals that have gone feral and been rehabilitated, which have the same effect.

Perhaps a better way of putting it is that I am easily moved. I hope that means I’m healthily plugged into my emotions, not just at the mercy of a heap of repressed crap that gets triggered by the stuff I see, read and listen to. In any case, our experiences, good and bad, shape our responses, whether they bring smiles, laughter, tears or even a whopping great punch-up—some are just more in more socially acceptable than others. I’ve written a lot about the benefits smiling and laughing with, or even at, others, but a good cry is up there in the feel good stakes too.

According to Dr Thomas Dixon, in a recent book where he examines the history of British Crying — Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears (don’t you love the title?), “Weeping is an intellectual activity, and yet it is also a bodily function like vomiting or sweating, or farting.” Tears seem to fulfil a higher function than just a vulgar bodily emission, but I guess they’re all forms of purging. When you think about it, crying’s not just an eruption of our emotional geysers, they’re also a way of protecting our eyes from spoilers like onions, billowing smoke, and particles carried in the wind by washing them out.

Whatever. There’s nothing like a good cry, or, as my Scottish compatriots would say, “a guid greet”. We have a rich vocabulary around crying. Snivelling, tearful, blubbing, wailing, sobbing, weeping, howling, bawling, to name the ones that instantly spring to mind. Bit like Miss Smilla and all those words for snow. Given how essential it is to our wellbeing, it’s a pity that publicly crying is one of the last taboos of our era. It’s almost up there with PDA (public displays of affection) on the pantheon of awful. We make fun of outsize emotions. God help the celeb caught crying a river over a broken relationship — paps have a field day, and it’s nirvana for the wits of the world who conjure meme magic to the schadenfreudistic (is that a word?) delight of all.

It hasn’t always been like this. We’re much more buttoned up than we used to be. From the earliest of times, tears have been associated with mourning rituals that included extreme acting out—prostration, excessive crying, tearing the hair, ripping clothes, smearing ashes on your face, for example. I’m glad that style of mourning has … er … died a death. But we’re far from it being considered good form to break down sobbing if our cappuccino is delivered cold.

In the medieval and Tudor world, histrionics were all the rage. People regularly gave their lachrymal glands a workout. Think big beefy Henry VIII (in his later years) projectile crying and generally carrying on like a toddler in full view of his court when something didn’t go his way. Up to comparatively recently, crying and emoting bit time were social norms. In the grip of high Romanticism, the early Victorian ear was awash … literally. It wasn’t until Albert died, leaving Victoria a grieving widow, that the vibe changed and emotional exuberance exited stage left. In it’s place came the stuffy, straight-laced, stiff-upper-lipped society we associate with the later era (at least on the surface). And it happened in only a couple of decades. Thanks for your legacy, late Victorians!

Subsequent generations copped all those repressive sentiments like “big boys don’t cry” and “I’ll give you something to cry about”. Even now, with much more relaxed standards and our buy into the concept of emotional intelligence, we’re not performative in our grief like our forebears.

The Tearjerker movie was a genius invention in a world with so little tolerance for adult tears. Tearjerkers allowed us a legitimate release valve. We could snivel up a storm in a dark auditorium where the tear police’s writ didn’t run. Of course, penance for this self-indulgence came in that ghastly moment when you had to exit your local Odeon clutching a wad of soggy tissues with bloodshot, morning-after panda eyes, and mascara-streaked cheeks. A blobby red nose and puffed-up, swollen lips completed the wrung-out look. The fact that everyone emerged the same did nothing to diminish the cringe factor of being seen having given in to an emotional storm. You could even hear the most blokey blokes coughing manfully, trying to camouflage this heinous crime. No one met anyone else’s eyes. It was wonderful and embarrassing and deeply cathartic. There is nothing like a good cry.

Credit: skynesher

I read an article this week about the absence of tearjerkers from our screens over the last couple of decades. Perhaps, with the advent of streaming services, we no longer saw the attraction of collective emoting in the dark. It’s just not the same sitting at home blubbing to yourself, your family and / or your companion animals.

Although tearjerkers have been Hollywood’s secret sauce since the earliest “I want to be alone” Garbo movies, their heyday is considered to be the seventies and eighties. This time saw a plethora of cryfests like Terms of Endearment, The Way We Were, Love Story, Kramer vs Kramer, Field of Dreams, ET, Top Gun, Beaches, Watership Down, and A Star is Born (the Streisand/ Kristoffersen version) and many more, hit our screens. We cried. And cried. And cried some more. It was magnificent. Not a dry eye in any house. Then peak tears arrived in 1997 with the titan of them all, the blockbuster Titanic, and we gave our tear ducts a rest. However, it seems there are stirrings in the wind that it might just be crying again[1]. Oh yeah, baby, yeah.  

The article got me pondering my all-time, guaranteed to open the emotional floodgates films. I blubbed my way through all of the above and many more. But if I want to cry without resorting to watching a movie— if I were an actor getting myself into the zone—there are two standouts. Curiously, both are children’s films, and both are about animals. So … drum roll … at the pinnacle of my all-time weepies? The 1994 film of Black Beauty. Specifically, the bit when Beauty sees Ginger for the last time alive.

“As if by magic, there she was, my beautiful Ginger. She was skin and bones. What had they done to her?”

From the 1994 film Black Beauty

They stand next to each other in a cab rank for a moment, and Beauty remembers when she was young and beautiful and all their happy ‘before times’ when men were kind. The next time he sees her, she is being hauled away, lifeless, on a cart. Tearing up as I write.

Black Beauty was my favourite book as a horse-mad little girl, which likely underpins my response to the film. I still have a copy. The last time I read it, I cried from about half way through, ending in convulsive sobbing at the bittersweet end . Luckily, it’s not a long book—I don’t think my internal waterworks could have coped.

Next? The ever-green Disney classic, Bambi. Specifically, the bit when a hunter shoots Bambi’s mother, and he’s left all alone. Gets me every time. In third place, Bambi again — when we realise his father is watching out for him. Now I’m crying as I write. It’s amazing that this 1942 movie still tears the heartstrings in a way many more recent ones don’t.

What are your favourites when you want a good cry? Here are a couple of handy top compilations of films, songs and books to get your give your tear ducts a workout. I don’t always agree with the selections, but each to their tearful own.

Films I Songs I Books

Anyway, must run. Off to my local cinema to catch Freud’s Last Interview. With a title like that, it’s bound to be a tearjerker!

[1] If films don’t do it for you, try this this gravelly Ray Charles, version of It’s Crying Time Again.

Do the (Side) Hustle

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Remember the 1975 disco hit The Hustle by Van McCoy and the Soul Symphony? The ‘song’ made No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Soul Singles charts during the summer of 1975 and on the Canadian RPM charts. It peaked at No. 3 in the U.K., No. 5 in New Zealand, and No. 9 in Australia. It only made 38 on the French Singles Chart, confirming (in case it needed to be) that the French are different. The Hustle won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance early in 1976 and sold over a million copies. 

But wait, there’s more. This catchy but annoying ‘song’ has been featured in films including Stuck on You, Vampires Suck and The Lorax, T.V. programmes— Shark Tales, That ‘70s Show, American Dad! and Futurama, amongst others. You’d have to say it was a whopping success despite only having three words—Do the Hustle! 

According to wikiHow, The Hustle is a “fast-paced partner dance, related to swing, and commonly danced to disco and modern pop. The dance involves four basic moves: stepping, twirling, chicken dancing, a move called ‘The Travolta’, and turning.” Then it was rinse and repeat until you drop. 

If you want a walk down memory lane and the chance to brush up on your hustle moves or try them out for the first time, you’ll find instructions in this incredibly cheesy short video. You’ll love it … honestly. Despite my cynicism, listening to it brought a fun flashback to my mid-seventies teenage disco queen. 

Anyway, despite a cursory search into the background of the dance, I couldn’t find anything specific. Presumably, it was a nod to the need to hustle to succeed or survive in the hustle and bustle of the seventies. It’s become much more sophisticated these days—it seems everyone has a side hustle—as a cheeky ‘must have’ accessory to one’s working life. Side hustles are flexible work that you do over and above your primary job to bring extra cash, get your creativity flowing or add purpose to your life. It could be taking up a new hobby, learning a new skill or using an existing one you want to ‘monetise’ at some point. Could even be volunteering for a non-profit you rate. 

As professional speaker and coach Alissa Carpenter says, “We all know Millennials love a good side hustle—to fuel their passions and wallets”. But it’s not just Millennials. It seems we’re all at it, including me; you’re no one if you don’t have a side hustle. It’s the ultimate put-down of our contemporary world: “What, no side hustle!”. I exaggerate, but the concept of the side hustle is endemic. 

I feel we need an updated version of The Hustle—Do The Side Hustle. What a pity Van McCoy died in 1979, shortly after the hit’s success, so he can’t do a side hustle of his own by remastering the original and raking it in. Clearly, it’s a great opportunity for some keen hustler.

Of course, it isn’t new. People have been forced or opted to take up additional burdens to make ends meet since Adam and Eve were ejected from Eden without notice. I’m sure they hadn’t had time to build up a rainy-day nest egg. People bandy the words around like membership of an exclusive club, but for people living on the margins, it’s always been an unwelcome part of their reality—the only way they can feed their families and survive. There’s also always been the darker side. I’m thinking black marketeers during war and rationing when fortunes are made by offering consumer goods that couldn’t be bought in conventional shops at exorbitant prices. The side hustle all too often comes wrapped in the trappings of despair, manipulation or holding people to ransom.  

While this type of side hustle is still shamingly very much part of the human condition, the trendy contemporary version seems pretty harmless. Side hustles, after all, make us better, more rounded, more connected, or simply wealthier people. Where’s the harm? Who suffers if you decide to set up an Etsy Shop as an outlet for your creativity? Or if I use all my waking hours outside work trying to become a best-selling author? Surely, it’s good to pursue the paths that make our hearts sing beyond the 9 to 5 grind. Why not use our ingenuity to make money on the hoof?

I’m a side hustler with the best of them, but there are issues. I’m about to publish a new book, and I’m running on fumes, trying to keep all the plates spinning. Side hustles can be hungry beasts sucking up all your best energy. In my day job, I run a design studio, which I own. As my book launch date looms, I’m not entirely clear which is the side course, and which is the main one as I scramble to keep all the plates spinning and keep my business dynamic whilst doing everything it takes to give my book its best shot. I’m blessed with high energy levels, but they’re not infinite, and I’m conscious of the risk of burnout if I keep the candle lit at both ends. I live alone, so it’s my call how I use my out-of-office time, but side hustles can short-change friends and family, stealing time that should be theirs. 

I’m all for putting time into hobbies and gaining new skills. You meet new people, expand your horizons, and potentially earn a bit of welcome extra dosh. I’ve met a wide range of like-minded people through mine, something I didn’t even consider when I started my indie publishing business with my sister. However, the statistics show that side hustles as a necessity are on the rise. According to CNBC’s Gilli Molinsky, “44% of people with a side hustle think they’ll always need it—and more are picking one up”. According to an April 2023 Bankrate survey of 2,505 U.S. adults, more than 39% have a side hustle to help cover living expenses rather than for discretionary spending. Half of the Millennials surveyed and over fifty per cent of the Gen Xers have one. 

The tragedy behind these stats is that too many people are going backwards financially, often underpaid, and coping with eye-watering costs of living hikes. Inflation at least seems to be under control (for now), but that only means commodities stay at the same high rates; they don’t revert to their more affordable pre-inflationary levels, so the cost-of-living hike is hard-wired in even though the curve has flattened (again, for now).

Anyway, I’m sure you get my point. Side hustles can be fun and richly rewarding on many counts for those of us lucky enough to follow our dreams because we can. They shouldn’t be a survival mechanism for people who have no choice.

P.S. Sorry if I’ve given you an earworm. If it’s any consolation, I can’t get the pesky Hustle thing out of my head either.

Fun with flatpack furniture

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How hard can it be? Seriously. Putting together a bunch of pieces to make an item of furniture? Child’s play, you might think. I certainly did, as I pressed Buy on a stylish mini-drawer set from IKEA, which looked perfect for my new home office. I live in an apartment, so space is always a consideration, and this baby offered bountiful bang for my buck in its miniature Scandi magnificence. 

Flatpacks, AKA knock-down furniture or ready-to-assemble furniture, are very popular. The concept is seductive—go to the online or physical store, buy the item, haul it home or get it delivered, and, after a bit of assembly time, voila, you have the perfect artefact for your home or garden or whatever. Right? Sort of.

But what a great wheeze flatpacks are…for their makers. Imagine the eureka moment when some eager beaver middle manager thought of an innovative way to make truckloads more money. Picture being a fly on the wall as said manager makes a presentation to their senior team, which might have gone something like this:

“I’ve been thinking outside the box to bring a major paradigm shift—or is it a pivot?— to the table here for your consideration. Thank you for the opportunity to run this game-changing idea up the flagpole. The central theme of the premise going forward is to let the customers assemble products themselves. Think what that will save us,” he/she/they enthuse as they rip through a PowerPoint full of quadrant graphs, up arrows next to dollar icons, etc. 

“We get them excited about affordability, convenience and the whole DIY bandwagon that’s kicking off—they’ll love it and won’t notice we’re selling them a pup. Next steps? Whiteboard a go-to-market strategy, take a deep dive, unpack the possibilities, and shift the dial. I’ll reach out in a couple of weeks to touch base and see if it’s in your wheelhouse.” 

In addition to being a walking cliché, our manager was clearly the identical twin of the towering genius who believed self-checkouts were a giant leap forward for civilisation. 

But love them we did—flatpacks that is, not the suits responsible for them. IKEA, the spiritual home of the flatpack, was founded as a mail-order retailer in 1943 by Swedish entrepreneur Ingvar Kamprad. By the early 2000s, IDEA was the world’s largest furniture seller, with three hundred-plus stores and infinite online buying options.

Anyway, in the same way, time heals all wounds—or wounds all heels, if you prefer—it also cauterises past flatpack traumas. I’m not a flatpack virgin—I’ve given a few of them a go since the London IKEA opened to much excitement in 1987. It’s brutal—every time. But if you leave it long enough between purchases, the scars fade, and you forget how awful it was. Your inner recovery mechanisms dampen any trigger warnings, and before you can say, “Flatpacks suck”, you’re back in that magical thinking place where hope triumphs over experience. In my experience, hope has always been the loser.

Returning to last Friday. My new flatpack duly arrives at my business and, with it, my first challenge. It’s heavy. When I bought it, I thought it was made of lightweight wood or MDF or something. Oops. It’s metal. The box itself is pretty small, but I can barely lift it. How to get it to my car and home without breaking myself? My business partner gallantly lends me his fold-up trolley, and, home from work, I’m feeling optimistic and light-hearted as I start unpacking. Until I look at the instructions when buyer remorse kicks in big time. There are 20 different steps involved. Surely, that’s overkill for a box with six dinky drawers. Realising this might be more than a two-minute job, I put it off until Sunday as I have more fun things to do on Saturday.

The next day dawns bright and sunny, but I’m a bit groggy, having got home at 3am and woken up at my usual first sparrows ludicrously early timeslot. Despite the lack of sleep, I know it’s now or never—if I don’t tackle the beast immediately, it will stay in its box for all eternity. It’s summer and already about 30 degrees. By the time I’ve got to Step 12, I’m sweating like a dyslexic on a spelling bee as I realise I’ve made all six drawers with the runners on the inside. Unlike Intel, which is a good thing to find within your computer,  for drawers, the big virtue is runners on the outside. OMG, kill me now. I unravel all six drawers, mashing my fingers with the out-of-control screwdriver and swearing like a trooper. You get the picture, I’m sure. 

It took me three hours. THREE HOURS! The miserable hours. But I have to say, broken nails and bruised hands and all, I am very pleased with myself and my wee drawer set. Here are some handy tips to consider as your mouse hovers over the BUY button:

  1. Understanding flatpack instructions is a near impossibility. Sometimes, you have to discern a build path from screeds of written instructions, typically in a font size requiring more magnification than the Hubble Telescope achieves. The IKEA people had helpfully reduced the one in question to mostly large pictures. Despite this, at most stages, I was still none-the-wiser and resorted to trial and error…which rewarded me with …mostly error.
  2. Putting the wrong pieces together or the right pieces the wrong way around is a certainty, and hours disappear like clouds driven by a gale-force wind as you undo it all and start again. 
  3. It’s easy to miss something in any given step. I’m unsure that the back of my drawer set is securely attached. But it’s the back, so who cares? Twenty-four hours later, it hasn’t fallen off. I’ll take the win.
  4. Think of a number, double it, then treble it, and you might end up with an approximation of the number of hours you need to allocate to this rewarding endeavour. 
  5. If you are a quitter, don’t bother. You need a backbone of Titanium— wait, make that Tungsten—and the determination of a terrier up a drainpipe after a rat to put this sucker together. 
  6. If you have high blood pressure or a heart condition, don’t bother. 
  7. On no account, try it alone. Even if the other person is as bewildered by the entire thing as you are, you need—nay must have—moral support, or you’ll risk insanity. 
  8. Flatpacks are a new level of pain, even if you’re a legend at DIY. I’ve done a fair amount of DIY in my time—hanging shelves, painting rooms, etc.—with reasonable results. Well, apart from that one time when I nearly electrocuted myself trying to wire up a small chandelier. Even this shocking experience had nothing on yesterday’s ordeal.  
  9. If you thought you were a ‘potty mouth’ before you started, you’ll discover profanities you didn’t know you knew before you finish.
  10. The opportunity loss is immense—so many other things you could be doing instead of breaking your hands and mental equilibrium, grovelling about on the floor, perspiring and cursing the gods of convenience as your body curses your choice. 

While researching for this post, I came across the previously unknown concept of flatpack assembly services. I felt immensely vindicated because if there are flatpack alchemists who can come to your rescue and transmute the base parts to furniture gold, that means flatpacks are impossible to put together—it’s not just me. How I wish I’d known. But OMG, the irony of paying someone to do what the manufacturers have offloaded—you pay less for the convenience of buying it in bits only to pay someone to put the bits together. Is the affordability thing, therefore, a delusion? Have we been suckered?  

Unless you are a DIY Wizard or professional carpenter (why would you need a flatpack item in the first place), my best advice is to buy the made-up version, get help from someone who knows what they are doing or even bring in a paid professional, however much it hurts to do so. In my case, note to self: never buy another flatpack. 

Serendipity rewards the prepared

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When’s the last time you thought I just had one of the best days of my life? It’s easy when we look back to overload the scales with the things we’re not proud of or might do differently. Things that have caused us distress, harm or sorrow. Missed opportunities. Resolutions that didn’t make it to the end of January. The self-pitying seduction of the might-have-been is powerful.  

Everyone around me was weary in the run-up to the holidays this year. Not unhappy, just a bit over it. By it, I mean 2023. There seemed to be a sort of collective consciousness willing the year away—a profound desire to close the door behind us on a confused, conflicted and curiously flat year and move on to the undoubted sunlit uplands[1] of 2024. 

Human psychology is an interesting beast. Nothing changes with a new year. The seasons come and go; time moves inexorably on. A year is simply a construct designed to enable us to plan, record and be productive. There’s no alchemy about it. But the transition from one to the next has a symbolic importance that’s hard to ignore. It offers a valuable ‘moment’ for reflection and re-calibration. A holiday-induced pause (for those lucky enough to have them) to take stock and re-set, sometimes even take the extreme option of reverting to factory settings. 

Ringing in the new with a resolution or two is as engrained in humans as chewing slippers is in puppies. The Babylonians were the first people recorded as celebrating each new year through a twelve-day festival, Akitu, marking the start of the spring planting season. Akitu included making resolutions to their gods, like loyalty to the king, paying debts and giving stuff they’d borrowed back to their rightful owners. You’d have to think they might also have included the usual suspects. Stop killing so many ‘fatted calves’ so they could shed a few sheckles (Babylonian kilos). Spend more quality time with the family. Read a few of those papyrus scrolls gathering dust in the study. Re-gild and polish the chariot and get back into the racing circuit. 

New Year’s resolutions have been around since Adam was a boy. While they undoubtedly are an excellent option for some, I don’t go big on them because I’m a planner and a natural goal-setter. I enjoy the reflective time over the holidays, the headspace to go deep. I also like the feeling of optimism that is triggered by a New Year, which reinforces my commitment to pushing further.

But whether you’re a resolver or not, planning and resolutions only take you so far. Sticking rigidly to the programme shuts down the random twists and turns that become our tales of the unexpected. Those thrilling, surprising convergences when a heap of seemingly unrelated stuff coalesces as if by magic and makes something incredible happen. The times when you are looking for one thing and find something else entirely along the way. Being open to the unexpected.

At the end of October, I published a professional book—Brands with Moxie: Eight Steps to A Winning Brand. I was beyond delighted as this was the culmination of two years of commitment and hard work, which, at times, felt like a black hole sucking every fibre of my being into its relentless vacuum. It certainly hoovered up all my spare time. But it finally got done, and when the first copies arrived, I felt as proud as any new parent of my creation. I then, not unpredictably, got sick—or maybe I was just exhausted—and had some enforced time to ponder life’s big questions. This episode of navel-gazing confirmed what I’d always known. I want to write. More than anything. It’s my thing. I have a lot to say. I like entertaining people. I’m an essayist at heart. But the bonus was that I realised I had most of the content for another book comprising a non-fiction collection of opinion pieces in the style of and named after this blog—Never Succumb to Beige and Other Rules for a Colourful Life. It’s opinion meets autobiography meets history in a tongue-and-cheek way. It draws heavily on my not-uncolourful life experiences. I then worked like a demented being to finish it before the end of the year. 

This somewhat accidental book triggered a sequence of serendipity that makes me smile as I write. Serendipity is, of course, the beneficial occurrences and developments that happen by chance. Or, as American crime writer Lawrence Block said, “Serendipity is when you look for something, find something else, and realise that what you’ve found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for”.  

I decided early on to go the ‘indie publisher’ route and quickly realised success with the brand book would need coalitions of the able and willing. In this mindset, I amazingly unearthed a printer I didn’t know about in my own backyard with a business division supporting indies like me. I set up a meeting to discuss my brand book, but decided to also show the person I met my Beige manuscript. Her response blew me away—she loved it and thought it had broad appeal. She was also a fountain of knowledge about book publishing. From this one contact, others have flowed. I now have an editor and a top publicist who has agreed to work with me towards an April/May launch. I’ve also found new, like-minded people prepared to swop insights and discoveries. The happy dance goes on and on. 

Although this happened quickly, it’s not as accidental as it seems. I have been writing for years, but not in a particularly joined-up way. I’ve ghosted a book on sales success, co-written a column—Sects in the City—reviewing business networking events and how to get the most out of them and clocked up several other decent notches on my writer’s headboard. But I’ve always seen writing as a ‘side hustle’. While I don’t intend to give up my day job any time soon, I’ve now got a way to elevate writing and content production to a central role in my business practice, and I have at least two other books ready to roll after Beige.

I’ve wished on many stars over the years but often struggled with the self-belief to reach up and grab one. Serendipity walks hand in hand with risk and trust. Without taking risks, you won’t grow; you don’t take risks without trust. Without either, the beautiful possibilities of the unimaginable remain in the wings, and you risk missing out on all sorts of good things. When I look back, the highlights are often the unplanned events and people that seem to have landed in my path out of the blue. Luck, you might say. Maybe. But serendipity has also been described as intention unmasked. I like that concept. This most recent demonstration of serendipity in my life is a long-standing intention finally unmasked. 

It’s also said that serendipity rewards the prepared. A bit like fortune favouring the bold. Fate is more likely to step in when you’ve already put yourself in its path. I was prepared for my brand book to be the change I wanted to see, and it’s doing everything I envisaged, particularly as the foundation for a new direction for my business. I was rewarded with so very much more.

So, I’m excited about what the New Year will bring. I’m moving forward with optimism and confidence in my plans. But I hope there will also be serendipitous twists and turns I haven’t planned for. Like the late Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver, I’m keeping some room in my heart for the unimaginable.

Best wishes for a 2024 journey that includes surprise, serendipity and adventure.

[1] Winston Churchill used the phrase “sunlit uplands” in his “their finest hour” speech delivered in the House of Commons on 18 June 1940, a month after he took over as Prime Minister leading an all-party coalition sketching a picture of an idealised or longed-for future time of happiness, prosperity, good fortune, etc.

Bouncing is what Tiggers do best

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I haven’t posted a blog for a year. It’s not that I lack ideas, but when I get into any of them, I find myself curiously bewildered about what I want to say in this polarising world where every precious word can be someone’s micro-aggression, trigger, or unsafety. 

I don’t have a global following, so what I write isn’t likely to get serious oxygen, but it’s still depressing because I’m a Tigger type — it’s in my DNA. Remember AA Milne’s excellent Winnie-the-Pooh stories? (Are we still allowed to talk about these?) Pooh fans will know that Tigger is one of the animal characters in these stories who get up to all sorts of adventures and misadventures together. Tigger — unsurprisingly a tiger — is notable for his love of bouncing, which occasionally lands him in trouble with his friends or stuck up a tree he can’t get down from without help.

As a kid, my family used to joke about my Tigger tendencies as I bounced through each day — a happy little unit with a decidedly sunny nature who sang away to herself most days on waking. Like the unfortunate Elephant’s Child in Kipling’s Just So Stories (apologies if Kipling is no longer kosher either), I have “‘satiable curiosity” and am fond of shiny new things. I strongly lean towards seeing the good side of people and situations. Somewhat irritating qualities to the less Tiggerish in demeanour it has to be said. 

My Tigger gene has generally carried me through life with the wide-eyed expectations of a child in a sweet shop, helped by a succession of stylish rose-tinted glasses. Over the last few years, though, I seem to have acquired tinges of Tigger’s perennially pessimistic, gloomy and depressed friend, Eeyore the donkey. My vivid orange Tigger stripes faded like furniture left in the sun for too long. My bounce became more of a plod, and my enthusiasm for … well … pretty much everything, like my childhood dawn chorus, muted. 

It’s easy to blame everything on COVID, but that’s a bit of a cop-out. For sure, the COVID era has felt like a plague of locusts descending on the planet, consuming everything good and decent and leaving a miasma of misery, myopia and malice in its wake. It’s been a tough time on many levels, not least for owners of small businesses like me. The ‘global pause’ also saw the cancellation of so many rites of passage that bring humans together with some degree of harmony. Time has felt one-dimensional without them. We managed to flatten the curve of chronology even though we failed with the epidemiological one — COVID remains a Spectre at our feast, and chronology for a while morphed into one of Dali’s dripping clocks. 

I can’t blame COVID for everything. I can’t blame COVID for the results of my choices, tempting though it is. I can’t blame COVID for the gap the loss of my parents has left in my heart. Equally, I can’t give COVID credit for the good things that have happened — there have been a lot of those, and I’m grateful. I also am not prepared to give COVID credit for the decision a couple of years ago to adopt my sister’s favourite mantra, “Nothing changes if nothing changes”. Working on that basis, I made changes. I took back control and stopped being victimised by the times. My mantra has long been, “If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it”. I realised I’d been merely treading water and started to strike out again with renewed determination towards my treasure laden ship.

The treasure I was swimming towards was purpose. The determination to re-invent my business. It was hard-hit during the pandemic and living on life support trying to sustain an outdated business model. It needed fresh thinking, so we defined an inspiring vision that would allow our Phoenix to rise in glittering splendour from the ashes of its previous incarnation. Nearly two years to the day, this vision is becoming a reality. I’m beyond excited and proud of the way it’s all coming together. I’ve written a book drawing on my professional expertise in brand development, which is being published next month, followed by the launch of an online learning platform by the end of the year. In my high-octane quest to re-calibrate and take our business into pastures new, I’ve been gobbling up apps and digital tools like the pursuers of wellness swallow Multivits. I’ve been at the edge of my comfort zone so many times mastering a heap of stuff, but l’m loving the journey.

Nothing’s easy, but it’s much easier when your gut agrees with your choices, and my gut is entirely in sync with this direction. It will allow me to focus on the stuff I want to do and not be a hostage to the place and time demands conventional businesses traditionally dictate. I’m not getting any younger, so this is a genuine need. It’s one thing I can unconditionally thank COVID for — we’ve all learned how to do things differently, and the pandemic accelerated the shift online by at least a decade, opening new ways of working and managing work. That feels a bit like freedom to me.

So, I’m happy to say Tigger’s back, bouncing around like a young grasshopper. The world once more feels like my oyster. Time has stopped dripping away. It’s not that I don’t care about what’s going on ‘out there’; I’ve just decided to stop letting the gloom darken my little corner of it. Our species has navigated into turbulent waters, but that doesn’t mean we must drown in the maelstrom. Life with purpose has always been a higher path. It always will be. Purpose gives our lives meaning. Purpose sees off pessimism. Purpose will get us through. My current purpose will keep me bouncing forward rather than up random trees I can’t get down from. 

I’m imagining the eye rolls of my family and the people I’ve lived with as I write. But hey, if I want to sing in the morning, I’ll sing. OK???

Illustrations from Winnie-the-Pooh books by E H Shepard. These are in the public domain.

Hibernation mode deactivated

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I’m excited—I’m writing a book. Please feel free to join my happy dance. I’ve been writing my book for several months now. Unfortunately, after a burst of energy over the (southern hemisphere summer), ennui sank its fangs into the jugular of my writer’s mojo, and I went back into a slough of inertia, if not outright despond. 

This whole pandemic thing and all the other unthinkable stuff that’s going on around us has challenged me big time. It’s like someone found Pandora’s Box intact, read the cautionary tale about what happens when you open it, but thought it would be a winning idea to open it anyway and see if it’s as bad as legend would have it. Just as an aside, Pandora’s box was, in fact, Pandora’s jar. There’s a long and boring story about Erasmus usign the wrong word when he translated the story from Greek to Latin…zzzzzz. Anyway, box or jar, it was left in Pandora’s care and curiosity drove her to open it. Epic fail! Imagine her face as she watched sickness, death and myriad other evils escape into the world. Even though she shut the box as quickly as she could — well, you would, wouldn’t you? — the only thing she shut back in was hope, surely the one thing humanity needed to survive the others? Eek! You’d have to think Pandora spent the rest of her life in therapy, coming to terms with her guilt.

Anyway, back to me. I don’t think I have felt so much lack of certainty before. Frankly, I’ve been confused in these oh-so-changing and identity-obsessed times. Every time I crank up my computer to start a post, I get bogged down in the deathly dichotomy of doctrinal duality (not to mention laboured alliteration). It’s not that I haven’t had ideas; it’s just that when I start to run with one of them, so many different pathways open up that I quite literally get overwhelmed and can’t decide which to follow. Like Robert Frost, I’d go for the one less travelled, but almost all of them qualify on that count these days. 

For someone who loves to comment, this uncharacteristic state of no comment—haven’t posted a blog at all this year and only a couple last year—is disturbing. There’s been such a one-dimensionality about life. The usual rites of passage have been cancelled or postponed, sometimes more than once. My choir is on it’s fourth attempt to sing the mighty Bach Mass in B Minor. Parties, weddings, funerals, festivals, concerts, celebrations with family and friends, travel and holidays. Many of the things that anchor our lives haven’t happened. Time seems to have folded into itself. Chronological memory has stalled—it’s hard to remember what happened and when it happened because the rhythm of our lives has been messed around so badly. 

However, I had a ‘Damascus moment’ a few weeks ago. I realise I’ve been in mental hibernation. We humans aren’t supposed to be able to hibernate, but I’m walking proof “the science” is wrong on this. Think about it. Hibernation is the thing that animals do to conserve energy so they can survive adverse weather conditions or lack of food. But isn’t hibernation just one great big sleep? Not at all. They’re not all a bunch of lazy fur balls—hibernation isn’t technically sleeping, and hibernating animals ‘wake up’ periodically. Hibernation’s more a state of torpor. The animal’s heartbeat and breathing slow, and their body temperature drops significantly. But they are still capable of some activity, including suckling cubs. Sounds scarily like my last two years, except for the cub suckling bit. Oh, and hibernating bears don’t eat, drink or exercise for around 100 days. I’ll leave you to figure out which of those abstentions apply to my hibernation experience. 

If animals can hibernate to survive stuff like adverse weather, why not me ? I’ve clearly been in a state of torpor avoiding all the crap unleashed by the idiot who re-opened Pandora’s box (or jar). I’ve been in my imaginary leaf and twig-lined den waiting for better times. What? I’ve woken up too soon? Well, even bears can only hibernate for so long. 

In any case, as there is SFA I can do about any of the stuff I’ve been hoping to outlast, I figured it was time to grab some of those lemons life has lobbed in my direction and make some lemonade. It’s time to zoom in on the certainties and consign confusion to outer darkness. So, I’m writing a book about branding for the founders of start-up and early-stage businesses. You may well think this is a giant leap from writing about random shit in this blog, but developing and managing brands is what I do for a living and, after a lot of years plus a fair few cracks at the entrepreneurial life to lace through it all, I have a lot of material. You might say my stash of lemons is a big one. Much tasty lemonade should result. 

OK, I’ll stop labouring the point and move on. But I am excited. It’s going well. Energy is high, optimism is loaded, and the world is again my oyster. Hibernation mode is most definitely deactivated.

May we not live in interesting times

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I’m sure you know the expression “may you live in interesting times”. This is sometimes referred to as ‘the Chinese Curse’. On the surface, it seems to be a positive wish, it’s typically used ironically with the “interesting” bit referring to moments when there is disorder and conflict rather than peace and stability. I should point out here that the cultural appropriation appears to be … er … not cultural … as there is apparently no known equivalent translation in Chinese.

Anyway, I’d say we’re certainly living in interesting times. In fact, you could likely put up an argument these are the most interesting times ever. In the proverbial sense, it doesn’t get much more interesting than the prospect of cataclysmic climate change that we’re facing, not to mention the seismic shifts going on in politics around the world.

In this sense, my last couple of months could also be described as “interesting”. I’ve been to three conferences focussed on sustainability and social justice issues, joined 40,000 others who marched to our Parliament building in Wellington’s Climate Strike, learned a useful new word,  Zweckpessimismus, and sung in a big production of Carl Orff’s immortal and highly bawdy Carmina Burana. You might struggle to see the connections, but ‘bear with’ …

With the exception of singing Carmina, which was tremendous, the common denominator linking the other threads was how easy it would be to get cynical and lose hope in the face of all the issues. For sure, the various conferences dished up some inspiring instances of people who clearly give a lot of damns doing amazing things, they also underscored a few home truths. While a lot of it was stuff I already knew, such as the awful state of our oceans with all that plastic choking the life out of everything in them and the shame of places like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it’s still shocking to listen to researchers who’ve seen these horrors up close and personal and measured the impact. I knew it was bad, but the scale is staggering. And that’s just the oceans!

I was a bit depressed at the end of this run of events, wondering if it really is possible for us to get the lid back on the Pandora’s Box we’ve opened. Wondering why so many people are still in denial that it actually exists, let alone has been opened? Then I came across the concept of Zweckpessimismus which helped me understand why so many of us seem transfixed like  deer in the headlights, unable to pull their heads out of the sand.

Zweckpessimismus is one of those complicated German compounds which translates as something like pessimism on purpose. In other words, the attitude of expecting the worst in order to feel relief when the worst doesn’t happen. This is undoubtedly one way of coping in a very uncertain world, but it seems like the sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that we should avoid like the plague.  Surely, we should be going hard out for the opposite — what can go right will go right?

Zweckpessimists, with their doomsday thinking are actually dangerous in these super-intersting times when we need hope and optimism above everything else. While it might be a wonderful feeling when you have expected the worst and it doesn’t happen, it is pushing out a form of negative energy that infects others with alarm and fear. Instead, let’s pool all the good vibes we can call forth to create an unstoppable wave of positivity to inspire our Simian ingenuity and creativity to find solutions. Perhaps then, the tipping point we seem to be reaching, will skew in the direction of a world we would like to see. Let’s opt for uninteresting times and be bored in perpetuity by the serenity of global peace and ecological abundance rather than the dystopian alternative that is the other option.

Coming back to performing Carmina Burana. It was a true celebration of what people can achieve in harmony.  Without blowing my own trumpet (both puns intended), it was a great night. Close to 2,000 people — audience and all the performers — left the concert on a high. This high — a palpable energy buzzing around the auditorium connecting us all — stayed with me long after the strains of the music were done. I hope that is true for others who were there. If we could always feel this way, how amazing would our lives be? Imagine the transformation that would follow if every Zweckpessimist out there expected the best instead of the worst. Someone should coin a word for that!

 

Counterfeit World?

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Haven’t written a post for some time. When I turned 60 in March I came over all introspective and had an unaccountable urge to start writing my auto-biography. This was all going quite well until I got into a funk about how much of my life and times I actually want to share … honestly … and so I ‘pivoted’ (the moniker the start-up community apply to a whopping change of direction) and am now a funk-free zone.

However, today I read an article that actually made me get my blog groove back on. The article was about the fact that for several years, a number of the (credible) scientific community around the world have been testing the possibility that we are part of a simulated world. Oh great, another fear to be factored into the growing list. To be sure, this is not at all a new concept. In the seventies, I can remember reading sci-fi books like Counterfeit World (or Simulacron-3 as it was published, for some unaccountable reason, in some places) written by Daniel F Galouye in 1964.

Counterfeit World featured a total environment simulator created by a scientist to advance market research by reducing the need for opinion polls. The world’s  inhabitants are unaware they are only electronic impulses in a computer. As the story unfolds, the protagonist progressively grasps that his world is likely not “real” and struggles with inchoate madness brought on by this realisation. Well, you would wouldn’t you? Things get pretty nasty before they get better as the ‘gods’ controlling his  ‘world’ try to keep the lid on their unravelling experiment. I wonder if this fab little book provided inspiration for the spine-chilling gold standard for simulated worlds, The Matrix (1999)?

While I don’t actually believe that we are part of a simulated world, the fact remains that computer simulation has become a norm, even if we aren’t yet capable of creating actual populated worlds. As the article points out, since the 90s, computer simulations have been set up to try to get answers to Big Questions.  Questions like “What causes war?”, “How will climate change affect global migration?” and “Which political systems are most stable?” Does anyone else wish someone would answer the biggest question “How do I win Lotto?  … and please, I want more than the standard “Buy a ticket”.

As things stand though, computers aren’t really up to the job of mimicking the extraordinary complexity of our world. Or, at least, not very well. Anyone hear the “yet” hovering at the end of this sentence. I’m open to believing that someday they might be. That it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they could achieve a state of sophistication where they could create simulations of people in computer code who are to all intents and purposes just like you and me in the way they think and behave. Scary shit huh? But there are people out there — and not just ANY old people, people with the sort of credentials that give them a seat at the table  — who think this may already have happened, that we actually are living in a computer simulation created by a more advanced civilisations.

As far back as 2003, the philosopher Nick Bostrom suggested that if you can believe that we might one day be running many simulations from an anthropological point of view to better understand our ancestors and the history of our civilisation, it is logical that we are living in one of them right now. And why would that be? According to Bostrom, “If people eventually develop simulation technology — no matter how long that takes — and if they’re interested in creating simulations of their ancestors, then simulated people with experiences just like ours will vastly outnumber un-simulated people.”

This would mean that our current world could then just be one of many because any anthropologist historian wishing to get beyond The Age of Empires as a way of understanding the rise and fall of civilisations will make many simulations involving millions or even billions of people to assess all the possible scenarios. As tainted genius Elon Musk sees it, “the odds that we are NOT simulations are one in billions.”

While this sounds like so much more conspiracy bollocks, since 2012, at least some members of the scientific community have been testing Bostrom’s thinking, including a bunch of physicists at the University of Washington. I’m no conspiracy theorist and I’m too lazy to try and decode how they are going about the testing — and why bother? After all, if we are living in a simulation or controlled experiment, ignorance has to be bliss.

The sinister aspect to testing whether we are indeed a simulation and actually proving that we are, is that if we knew for sure we are living in our own counterfeit world, we would become pointless to our controllers and they would likely end the experiment. It’s like when new drugs are tested for efficacy. It’s important that the patients involved don’t actually now whether they’re on the drug or taking a placebo. If they find out, the trial loses its point and will be cancelled. As Green calls it, a ‘simulation shutdown’ would occur and then what would become of us.? I’d say, whatever the truth, let sleeping dogs lie!

Happy New Year … you’re under arrest!

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Two burly, unsmiling cops barge into my office and stride purposefully to my desk. “Frances Manwaring?” the taller and meaner of the barks at me. “Er … yes,” I say a little tremulously, wondering what they want. “Frances Manwaring, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent … ” As the cop reels off my Miranda rights, I wonder if I’m in the middle of a nightmare. I pinch myself to be sure, but voice drones on…

OK, so I didn’t get arrested — just wanted to build the drama of the piece. But seriously, it was how I imagined things might have gone down if my business partner hadn’t gone to collect our mail from our PO Box on Tuesday. This is a rare event — nothing of any use comes by snail these days so weeks can go past without either of us stirring our stumps to go and pick up whatever dross has gathered dust. In this case it had been only been a relatively short gap since the last visit and that only because I’m in the middle of a transaction in the UK with an antediluvian, seemingly technophobic insurance company for whom physical mail, for some unfathomable reason, is the only way it will communicate.

Anyway, back comes John with a bundle of letters, mostly bank statements and the usual junk promos. While we’re on the subject, what is it with banks? Mine seem hell-bent on squandering whole forests by continuing to send paper statements, even though I’ve opted for digital versions more times than Kim Kardashian changes her handbags. But I digress — back to the main event. Because I’m hoping to find a reply from the annoying UK insurer, I don’t just lob the whole lot into the recycle bin as I often do. That’s an inspired decision as it turns out. Irritatingly, the hoped for insurance missive isn’t in the stack. Instead, lurking amongst the wad of bank statements, is a formal looking item with “OPEN IMMEDIATELY!” emblazoned on the envelope. How intriguing I think … how very Alice in Wonderland. Then I notice the Ministry of Justice crest and figure it must be something follow up from the Jury Service stint I did in early November. Being a complaint sort of person (!), I open it immediately as instructed without any concerns. But a brief first scan of the the short letter almost stopped my heart.

Nothing magical about this missive! Turns out it’s a summons to appear in court on Thursday at 11am. I’m reading it on Tuesday at about 4.50pm, so the imminence is pretty alarming. Has to be a mistake I think. Must have read it wrong. Reading it again does nothing to alter my first impression — it’s definitely a summons and it’s definitely addressed to me, so not a case of mistaken identity. And the heinous crime that requires my presence in court? A speeding infringement from mid-2016. The letter contains a helpful, but not very imaginative infographic (being MD of a creative agency, I’m quite up on what makes a good infographic) depicting the scary steps involved in the apocalypse triggered by this infringement. If you don’t pay the fine instantly, you get a reminder and some grace to stump up (Step 1). After continued ignoring of reminders (Step 2), the up the ante with a summons to court (Step 3). Failure to appear leads to arrest (Step 4).

Poorly rendered though this infographic is (note to self – send our credentials to MOJ and see if they need a new creative agency), I’m now more than a little freaked out. Us head girl types don’t get summoned to appear in court, it’s just not in our DNA! Anyway, it’s now 4.59pm and I panic dial the Ministry’s 0800 quicker than you can say Great Train Robbers to see WTF is going on and what I can do about it. I thank my lucky stars to find someone still taking calls (at a government agency) after 5pm and I have a very convivial conversation with this saintly person who clearly doesn’t think I’m an axe murderer. Having cleared that up, we quickly cut to the chase. The problem turns out to be a timing issue. I’d just moved house at about the time it happened, so didn’t receive the original fine notice (thanks whoever moved into that house after me and didn’t forward my mail). Then I didn’t notify my change of address to the powers that be before the reminder was sent out, so I also didn’t receive that (another heartfelt thank you to the new incumbent).

It was a little un-nerving how much information about my movements my new BFF was able to access while we were talking. I did vocalise somewhat stridently (not too stridently as I didn’t want to get offside with MOJ) my disappointment and surprise that only the one reminder appears to have been sent, and that there had been no subsequent communications until this summons to court more than two years later. In any case, I had to agree it was a fair cop as I hadn’t sent the change of address out immediately and it was therefore on me that the documents never found me. As you can imagine, I threw in a few mea culpas at this point. I’m sure you’ll be very happy to know that all it took to fix the problem was a credit card and $60 of creditworthiness. I certainly was! The irony of it all was that the original fine was only something like $12, the rest being penalties and court fees which couldn’t be waived because of my failure to notify change of address. However, she assures me I don’t  have to make an appearance in court appearance and the long arm of the law won’t be reaching out for me and we’re done. Phew!

Later, I pondered the astonishing amount of effort that goes into a minor misdemeanour when so much other big crime goes unchecked. That’s a story of its own, but there’s another side to this issue. I’ve moved several times in the last few years. I’m pretty diligent about sending out change of address notices to people like the Transport Authority, and I genuinely thought I had notified them all after that particular move. Apparently not. Some time ago I decided to get around this by using my business PO Box as my personal address to avoid all the hassle involved.

But my point is how easy it is to get offside with the law. Many people less advantaged than me also move a lot for all sorts of reasons, including financial or family difficulties. Many more have temporary addresses or no address. For sure, a proportion of these won’t own or drive cars, so won’t be in line to clock up traffic offences. However, I’m sure many of them do and I wonder how much of our policing time is spent arresting people who, like me, didn’t ever get the fine notices in the first place? Being generous, I’m sure most of us would actually stump up, particularly as they offer payment terms.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing with the law. Curtailing the speed at which people drive makes us all safer and I do try to stay within the legal limits. I’m sure there are recidivists who never pay and deserve to be prosecuted because they clearly don’t care about the consequences. However, from this experience it’s easy to see how quickly things can escalate and suddenly you’re in trouble. I’m sure I wouldn’t actually have been banged up, but I might have landed a criminal record if I’d been convicted. I ended up thinking there but for the grace of God go I if John had postponed his trip to our PO Box by 2 days. Timing is everything! Happy New Year indeed.

Ghosts from Christmases past #2: Hip hip hooray!

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Spending Christmas in hospital would not high on my Dear Santa wish list. I apologise in advance to all those dedicated and wonderful doctors and nurses who are rostered on through holidays to look after the hapless hoardes who are ill or break themselves at Christmas. Nope, those guys do a heroic job. But hospital at Christmas – it’s just not living the dream is it? It has to be said, I have been one of the hapless Christmas A&E admissions, having snapped my Achilles tendon on holiday on Christmas Eve a few years ago and I was truly grateful (a) that it happened in the early morning so I wasn’t competing with all the drunks that clog the system later in the day/night and (b) that those dedicated and wonderful types were with great good grace (amen) to put this Humpty together again without any kings’ horses or men in sight.

Still and all, a festive hospital visit is just not anyone’s top choice as a holiday destination. And yet, fifteen years ago, it actually was. I needed what is amusingly referred to as ‘elective surgery’. Elective because you can, in theory, choose whether to have it or not, and when, as the condition doesn’t need to be dealt to at a particular time — i.e. it isn’t life threatening. The whole elective thing is laughable. Big yeah right! In many cases there is a choice, but that happens when your surgeon accepts that your pain is so extreme that you’d likely go insane if you had to bear it for a nano-second longer.

To give you the back story, I had both hip joints replaced in my late thirties. I was unusually young, but by no means unique. There were a number of things wrong with me each one of which on its own wouldn’t have been much of an issue, but collectively combined to wreck the joints. Because of my age, my surgeon held the surgery off as long as he could because he was worried about future complications — the prostheses only last so long and there are only so many times you can effectively replace the replacements because apparently you run out of femur to play with (sorry if this is a little close to the … er … bone for some). It was all about probabilities. How long the replacement joints would last, how long I would live If the first was shorter than anticipated and the latter longer, I faced seeing my life out in a wheel chair. In any case, my condition deteriorated at a rate that would have made an Apollo Space Craft seem laboured. Movement became very limited, quality of life nose-dived and ultimately the pain became so bad he relented. I had both of them ‘done’ within a year of each other. Happy days!

Anyway, the ops were a tremendous success. I got my life and mobility back, the pain was miraculously gone and I was a happy little camper. Then several years later comes ‘The Fall. Before you get worried about my state of innocence, I don’t mean fall in the Biblical sense. No, my fall was getting a bit carried away at an al fresco party and missed my footing in the dark on the edge of some concrete circle we’d turned into an impromptu dance floor. Seemed like a great idea at the time. Wouldn’t have been too big a deal if I hadn’t landed so hard that one of my prostheses came loose. Back to limping, pain and the certainty of more surgery.

This time, there was no question of the surgeon putting up a fight — the revision clearly needed to be done and it was only a question of when. Luckily for me, I have a private health care plan which meant I really was in a position to choose a time that would be the least disruptive to my life. The first slot that my surgeon could offer was just before Christmas, meaning I would be in hospital for Christmas and Boxing Day. The next option was weeks away and, once I’d thought about it and got over the poor me aspect of it all, the Christmas timing was actually ideal. The private hospital I went to was very close to my house, so easy for family visits and minimal unscheduled time off work.

In all seriousness, apart from the fact that undergoing surgery of this sort is not a walk in the woods, once I’d got over the immediate effects of the anaesthetic and the post op trauma had passed, it was actually quite fun. I had a lovely big airy room on the corner of the hospital all to myself. The nurses were a great bunch, some were old friends from previous incarcerations. I think they were grateful to swop stories with someone who was under 85 to be honest as they dropped in more than was strictly necessary and we had a lot of laughs. It didn’t stop there. I had had more visitors than I probably would have had at home, and I didn’t have to lift a finger on the festive cooking front. The food wasn’t half bad, particularly a pretty yummy (for an institution) roast turkey dinner on the big day, washed down with one of those cute little miniature bottles of a hearty red and the decorations were pretty flash. Best of all, I didn’t have to suffer through all the endless repetitions of canned Christmas music. By the way, does anyone other than me find the whole idea that Santa sees you while you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake a bit creepy and stalkerish? Anyway, I was out by New Year and well into the familiar rehab routine.

Now that we’re in the hiatus between Christmas and New Year, there’s a bit of time to ruminate about stuff. This morning, in one of those desultory conversations one has with friends and family, my mother and I somehow meandered into comparing the vintage of our artificial joints. Tragic, I know but hips seem to be our family thing. We’ve all had them done. Big difference is when they were done; grandfather (late eighties and only one), father (early eighties and only one), uncle (well into his sixties and only one), mother (both — late fifties and early sixties) and sister (mid-fifties — one so far, but counting down to the next). Then there was me in my late thirties, not sure what happened there! Anyway, my mother’s first prosthesis is a venerable 25 whereas mine is a stripling at 20. No-one really knows how long they will last because everyone’s activity levels are different. Equally the vast majority of the recipients of artificial hips are quite old and so it’s difficult to measure average lifespans as the first one generally sees them out. However, 20 is thought to be a pretty good age, so mum and I were musing how much longer ours would hold out.

We also reprised a regular foray into imagining what our parallel universes would have thrown up  if this amazing technology had not been available to us. To be honest, It doesn’t bear thinking about. If we’d been born before the middle of the last century, we’d both likely be cripples, even if either of us was still alive.Early attempts at hip replacement were carried out in Germany in 1891 using ivory to substitute for the femur head. These were attached with nickel-plated screws, Plaster of Paris and glue. Hmmmm. Not surprising this approach didn’t take off. The pre-cursor to current techniques was pioneered in 1940 in South Carolina by US surgeon Dr Austin T Moore who performed the first metallic hip replacement surgery.  A more sophisticated version – the ‘Austin Moore Prothesis’ — was introduced in 1952 and is apparently still used occasionally. Like modern hip implants, it is inserted into the medullary canal of the femur, and depends on bone growth through a hole in the stem for long-term attachment. Another apology here if this creeps anyone out!

It’s always so tempting to think about the golden age that we perceive existed in our grand parents’ eras. Apparently, every generation since the newspapers rolled off the early printing presses felt this sort of nostalgia for imagined glories past, underlined by a fear of change and what it means for the future. Every time I get caught in this sentimentality for the halcyon past, all I have to do is think about my great good luck in living now and being on the receiving end of the incredible medical science and technology that is our norm. Even with all the problems we’re facing as a species, I’m grateful from the bottom of my soul that surgical advances have allowed me to live a full, pain free and normal life. When I think of Christmas miracles, my hospital experience in 2003 would have to be one of them. If we can achieve all this, surely we clever, inventive Simians, can find the tools to figure out the other stuff. Hip hip hooray to that!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ghosts from Christmases past #1: What a cracker!

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Earlier in the week I did one of my favourite parts of Christmas — delivering Christmas gifts for my (Moxie’s) Wellington-based clients. While I was arranging my gaudily sequined Christmas hat as jauntily as I could and wondering whether I could still get away with this look, I had one of those incredible déjà vu moments as I remembered a ghost of myself from a Christmas past.

Thirty years ago, almost to the day, a lovely friend Daniella and I, resplendently festooned in Miss Christmas costumes, were hauling sacks of giant Christmas crackers around the streets of the City of London. We were delivering the contents of said sacks to commercial real estate agents and the crackers were a promotion to announce that the owners of one of the city’s newest tower blocks had decided to break down the floor space into smaller units for rent. Well, dear reader, what a buzz! Everyone was thoroughly into the festive spirit (some literally) and we turned heads, stopped traffic and generally had great banter with the people we passed. Lot of ‘you better be good for goodness sake’ sort of jive. It has to be said, the hats were coy, the skirts short, the heels high and the legs long. Of course, the clichéd red velvet and faux white ermine outfits had their own tacky but exotic allure. In these highly PC days donning we then this gay apparel might appear like the ultimate in objectification. Back then, we just saw it as a bit of harmless fun — it was for my business, no-one forced us and, in any case, we probably thought we looked ‘hot’ and enjoyed flaunting it. A whole topic for a different blog!

This cameo role was related to a business that I tried to help a friend’s son Ralph get off the ground. He’d already started it, but it wasn’t gaining traction beyond his immediate locale. We called it Absolutely Crackers!and the giant crackers for the city building were one of our biggest successes. In its short life span, Absolutely Crackers! really rocked the corporate promotions market — we made bespoke, weird and wonderful crackers for a range of iconic brands including Arsenal Football Club and top end chocolate manufacturer Charbonnel et Walker. Then there were the sumptuous crackers designed to match the splendour of art deco Pullman Carriages on the Venice Simplon Orient Express.  Fillers for these were white silk evening scarves for men and exquisite hand-painted ones for women from VSOE’s merchandise range. For a city broker, crackers made from the Financial Times were the perfect accessory for their annual bash.

The jewel in our crown was creating the invitations to CBS Records (now Sony Music) Christmas party in 1988. I don’t recall how we got in front of CBS — might have been via my then husband who was involved in music sponsorship — but we put together a very ambitions proposal for they invites which they, somewhat amazingly, accepted. In retrospect, they probably went for it because we ludicrously under-priced the whole gig.

The theme for the party was ‘Old English’ and, let me tell you, these weren’t just any old crackers. No, no, no, these were masterpieces of ingenuity and engineering. What we proposed, and they ultimately got, were individually boxed crackers — we designed a sleek triangular box to make them easy to post or courier to the who’s who of the musical world that were on the invitation list. In keeping with the theme, the crackers themselves were made from a beautiful burgundy and gold paisley patterned paper and the gifts were boxed miniatures of Glen Fiddich. Nice touch we thought even though Glen Fiddich is clearly not English. Nor is it even that old, having been founded in 1886, but good luck getting boxed miniatures of mead! Anyway, CBS seemed to agree that the single malt met the spirit … hem hem … of the occasion.

So far so good. The glory of the piece was the invitation which was hand-written by a calligrapher using medieval ornamentation on the lettering and then reproduced on parchment style paper. Most sane people would simply have rolled the invite up inside the cracker. Not us! No, we figured that to be authentic, they needed something else. So the invite was rolled, tied with red satin ribbon and then sealed using a custom designed CBS seal and traditional red sealing wax. The scroll this made was glued to the top of the cracker and the finished articles looked amazing.

And that’s where the wheels fell off. We had to assemble 350 of them. Anyone like to hazard a guess how long it takes to hand seal 350 parchment invitations? What calibre of satin ribbon can withstand the heat of the sealing wax being dripped onto it? No clue? We didn’t either. I can remember sitting at home at my kitchen table, the ceiling paint slowly blackening with the somewhat greasy smoke from the melting wax, my fingers progressively covering with Band Aids as the skin reddened and blistered, and the frustration grew as each ribbon sample melted down. I think we finished them off in the Board Room of my day job. (Happily I had a great boss who thought the whole cracker madness was great fun and might even have been the genius behind a device that got created to allow us to make about 10 ribbon seals simultaneously.) Anyway, the crackers were a huge hit even if we made no money out of them (on account of never having done anything like this before — has anyone?  — and not being able to price them effectively). But hey, luminaries like Mick Jagger and George Michael got our crackers … and what price a few first degree burns between superstar friends!

But how did crackers get incorporaed into the Christmas lexicon in the first place? It’s not like Matthew’s Gospel told us of wise men bringing gold, frankinsense, myhrr … and … er … crackers. You can sort of understand where Christmas trees and all the Easter paraphanalia like eggs and bunnies got adapted from the pagan festivals the Christian ones replaced. But crackers were unashamedly commercial. Wikipedia (bless) tells the story of how one Tom Smith was first to market.  He apparently created crackers as a development of his bon-bon sweets, which he sold in a twist of paper (the origins of the traditional sweet-wrapper). But the novelty wore off, sales of bon-bons slumped, and Smith sought new promotional ideas. Apparently, he added the “snap” when he heard the crackle of a log he had just put on a fire. The size of the paper wrapper had to be increased to incorporate the banger mechanism, and the sweet itself was eventually dropped, to be replaced by trinkets. This new product was initially marketed as the Cosaque (i.e. Cossack), but quickly morphed into the onomatopoeic “cracker”. The other elements of the cracker we all know and (many of us) love —the gifts, paper hats and mottos — were all introduced by Walter Smith (Tom’s son) to differentiate their product from competitors who’d grasped the opportunity and got on the cracker bandwagon.

Back to Absolutely Crackers! Despite the genuine success of some of our promotions, the cracker empire never eventuated. Behemoth’s like Tom Smith still dominated the retail market and made it pretty much impossible for us to succeed. Without cracking (sorry couldn’t resist it) the retail market, relying on promotions was too random as they didn’t happen evenly during the year. Our vision was to make the cracker a ubiquitous part of the corporate party circuit, not just at Christmastime. Instead we coped with high stress peak times during October – December which, fun though they were … and they were … were also unsustainable. In any case, as with CBS, we didn’t really know how to price the jobs properly and lacked the confidence to just think of a big number and double it, then double it again, so we didn’t manage to build any reserves.

We did try quite hard to get into the ‘high end’ retailers like Harrods, Fortnum and Mason and Asprey but other independents peddling top of the line product, had got to them first. Asprey in particular offered eye-wateringly expensive crackers at around fifteen hundred quid for a dozen. Think gold plating and diamonds designed for wealthy Saudis! We didn’t have the working capital to really get stuck into this level of ostentation. In the end, we decided to throw in the towel and, with extreme regret, closed our little factory unit outside Hereford. I re-focused on my day job which likely pleased my long-suffering boss, and Ralph went off to study drama.

Despite this, I loved Christmas crackers  long after Absolutely Crackers! went to the big Christmas party in the sky and have re-prised my cracker making skills for family and friends on many occasions over the years. To me, specially designed crackers are like icing on the cake of my table setting themes. I also found them to be a very personal and loving way of wrapping carefully chosen gifts. I guess my feelings about table settings and crackers were akin to the way others offer love through food. However, it’s increasingly hard not to be sickened by the overt consumerism of this time of the year. All the advertising for too many things we don’t need and there’s no place to hide behind the knowledge of the damage we consumers have wreaked on our environment.

Apparently there’s a memorial water fountain to Tom Smith and his family at Finsbury Square in London. Perhaps this is another monument that ought to be removed? Crackers may well be a beautiful augmentation of the Christmas table and add some fun to the moment. But it is only a moment and they are just another layer of landfill when it all comes down to it and we need more of that like we need to colonise Mars. Well actually, we probably will need to colonise Mars if we don’t stop creating landfill like crackers, but I’m sure you know what I mean. I’ve stopped making or buying them even if I have to psyche myself to step away from the tantalisingly presented boxed sets in stores and mourn the creative opportunity loss for my table decorations.

Having said all that, all that remains is to wish you a cracker of a Christmas and a very happy New Year full of peace, joy, hope and love.